Friday, March 5, 2010

What a Lush

This picture pretty much sums up my sophmore year of college.
Cigarette, jet black hair, drink in my hand, and some weird ribbon-y bow on my head.  No wonder why I felt like crap all the time. Anyway, I lifted this picture from Facebook, because today we are talking about Lush.
This is my second tango with veganism, and one of my resolutions is to focus on cleansing my entire life of animal products. In order to make that a reality, I had to start with my bathroom. I was doing pretty well with vegan shampoo, conditioner, and shaving cream, but I just couldn't get behind the tea tree oil cleanser that I bought at Trader Joes. I have very sensitive, easily irritated skin, and it usually left my face way too dry. I knew that I needed a new cleanser, and I knew that I needed to go to Lush.
Lush is a company that makes fresh, organic, hand-made cosmetic products. While I have been there before for bath bombs and gifts, I had never really taken a look at their skin-care line until just this week. They helpfully label all of their vegan products, which was great. Instead of everything coming neatly packaged in 5 layers of cellophane, they treat a lot of their products like bulk bins, and they will cut off or scoop out however much you need. For example, I bought half a pound of cleanser and it came packaged in a clear plastic container with a cute little label.
The salesgirl there was very helpful as I explained my needs, and pointed me towards their Angels on Bare Skin, which is a clay-based cleanser. It has almonds to exfoliate as well as rose and lavender to balance out the skin. You basically scoop a little bit of this dry clay into your hand, mix it with a little bit of water, and rub it all over your face before rinsing. She suggested that I follow it up with their rose water toner, and I (always the sucker) bought both. I've been pleasantly surprised by how smooth and soft my skin is after cleansing, and a definitely see some of my redness going away. The only downside is that it doesn't seem to be any good at deep-cleansing. They have a black charcoal clay as well, and I might try that one next time. Apparently my $15 supply is supposed to last about a month, but I don't think I've been going through it that quickly, even though I use it twice a day.
Veganism is sometimes a double-edged sword. On the one hand, your body starts to detoxify itself and that's great. On the other hand, all of the toxins and crap that used to reside in your body seems to rise to the surface and manifest itself in clogged pores. I was reading up on fasting and found out that a very common side effect is seeing your skin break out. The article reccomended daily exfoliating, which I am obviously doing with my new cleanser. I need to keep reminding myself that it's only temporary until my body flushes everything out. In the meantime, I'm putting a lot of faith in Lush and we will see what happens.

1 comment:

  1. Only fat/oil make your skin break out. Bacteria on your skin metabolize the fats which create the smaller chain fatty acids which cause redness and then infection. Cut the fat and your breakouts will vanish. Means no more daiya, earth balance, though!
    http://www.drmcdougall.com/med_acne.html

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